The invention concerns a process for repair of a nuclear reactor fuel assembly damaged at the periphery of a spacer support, which assembly consists of a bundle of longitudinally extended fuel rods, which are held in position by several grid-shaped interim spacer supports that are axially separated from one another, whereby each fuel rod passes through a cell of the spacer support formed by intersecting metal crosspieces arranged at the edge and is supported therein elastically.
During loading or unloading of a reactor core with fuel assemblies, peripheral spacer support cells are occasionally damaged by catching against neighboring fuel assemblies.
In order to eliminate such damage in the prior art, a fuel rod or a dummy fuel rod was re-inserted in position after removing or straightening the damaged metal crosspieces of the spacer support. In particular, if two or more spacer supports arranged one above the other are damaged and the metal crosspieces must be completely removed, the insufficient support leads to a swinging of the fuel road and thus this rod or the neighboring fuel rod can be easily damaged.
If one wishes to avoid such swinging, according to the state of the art, all rods of the fuel assembly must be withdrawn in a time consuming way, and then be inserted into a new fuel assembly frame consisting of the spacer support, guide and end pieces. In addition to loss of time here there is also the danger that the fuel rods will receive excessive cracks during withdrawal and reinsertion, and in addition, the spacer support may be damaged.
Therefore, the objective is to create a process of the type given above, but in which swinging can be avoided.